Clashes at West Bank Apartment Block Demolition

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Garbage Piles Up in Streets as Government Squabbles

Concern Grows As Palestinian Village Faces Demolition

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Clashes Erupt in West Bank After Palestinian Funeral

NBC News
July 23, 2015

This content comes from Closed Captioning that was broadcast along with this program.

>>>well, again, good afternoon to you. in
america
today weerks does he recalling with newly-leased and graphic combat video of brutal civilian death in
iraq
. the website says that the classified video is from an american apa che helicopter. the video we are about to show you is disturbing and graphic. according to the website, this video dates to
july 12th
,
2007
. it shows two men they identified a journalist and his driver. as well as several others. the camera strap is mistaken for a weapon. he and another man thought to be equipped with
rpgs
and ak-47s.

>>five to six individuals with ak-47s.

>>we have a guy shooting.

>>the journalist, his driver and the other men assemble and the helicopter opens fire.

>>line them all up.

>>come on. fire.

>>the tape identifies approximately eight men as killed in the strikes. including
reuters
cameraman and his driver. they're apparently assumed to be insurgents.

>>dead bastards.

>>nice. [ bleep ].

>>thank you.

>>later, a family and neighbors, adults and children inside a minivan pull up on the wounded to try to help. they, too, are fired upon.

>>come on.

>>clear.

>>while the
well being
of the adults in the van is not reported, the two children in the van were seriously wounded. until now, the military had said it didn't know how those children were injured and that the people killed were anti-iraqi forces or insush gents. near the end of the tape,
ground troops
arrive on the scene and a tank drives over one of the
dead bodies
.

>>drove over a body.

>>altogether, 12 people are believed to have been killed in that particular series of events. we should point out that the information that we do have right now is from the website, a group known for leaking sensitive government and corporate documents which in the past have proven to be authenticate and said
reuters
was trying to get the video using a lawsuit under the
freedom of information act
, had not as yet been successful. and as for the other side of this story, senior military officials telling
nbc
news this afternoon that they believe that the pilots were convinced that they were firing on armed insurgents. this happened in an area where
u.s. soldiers
had come under fire in the past. the pilots thought they needed to take action. the pentagon says that it sees no reason to investigate this any further and that there have been no calls for an investigation. they see no evidence of
criminal intent
or negligence in this particular case. joining us now is julia that sang and bret magurk with the
council on foreign relations
, lieutenant colonel anthony schafer and glen glenwald, columnist, lawyer for salon.com joining us by way of skype. julia, how did you come to have these tapes?

>>we acquired in it a process like this, we never speak too directly about our
confidential sources
.

>>you would point this to a military whistle-blower effectively?

>>yes. there were more than one military whistle-blowers involved in releasing this material and surrounding documents to us.

>>do you have -- go ahead.

>>when we first obtained the video itself, that was encrypted.

>>do you have more tapes like this?

>>yes, we do.

>>how many?

>>i won't go into the precise number but there was a rumor that the tape we were about to release was about a similar incident in
afghanistan
where 97 people were bombed in may last year. we have that video.

>>do you intend to release that video, as sfwhel.

>>yes. as soon as we have finished our analysis, we will release it.

>>what is your intention in releasing these videos and acquiring these videos?

>>well, we can see in this case we really have unique material that shows how modern
aerial warfare
is done. hasn't been revealed bmp. it also shows the debasement and moral corruption of soldiers as a result of war. it seems like they are playing
video games
with peoples' lives and even the
mission
itself many may argue with the correctness of the submission thrown out the window. for example when one of the
reuters
journalists is lying prone on the ground, they may believe him to be an insurgent but he clearly has no weaponry new
york city
arms, no arms combat around him and what appears to be good samaritans, go to his aid, clearly unarmed, if he was an insurgent, they genuinely believed he was an insurgent, that wounded man should be interrogated and asked what about he was doing. but instead, you can hear on the transcript they're saying, come on, buddy. just pick up a weapon. all we need to you to do is pick up a weapon because under the
rules of engagement
, as soon as he picks up a weapon, he can be killed so their desire is simply to kill as many people as possible, to get as high of a
score
as possible in their endeavor to kill people and then brag about it to the rest of the troops, the
mission
itself is completely out the window.

>>julian, please rejoin us again as you continue your efforts to document some of this coverage. julian, co-founder of
wikileaks
. i want to learn to you, brett. you were in
baghdad
at the time of this tape was shot. is that correct?

>>off and on, yeah.

>>put this in context. was this -- is this typical? is this an extraordinarily rare event and how does this event fit into the context of the narrative or the arc of reality on the ground in
baghdad
and particularly in the context of the surge?

>>i mean, this is middle of the surge between april and july we lost about 400
american soldiers
in combat. this district was new
baghdad
just south of
sadr city
. the hottest of the
hot zone
. we were finding rpg 29s, the most sophisticated weapons coming in from
iran
. we were losing soldiers every day. you can get a sense of what the attitude was like from the troops there.

>>what about the frequency with which these types of mistakes get made?

>>that's the
mission
which was put down from
general petraeus
to protect the population. that was the
mission
and that
mission
succeeded. this was an operation which if you go to the beginning of the tape, they thought they say
rpgs
which were, in fact, cameras. an area of
baghdad
, hottest of the hot zones and engaged these groups. it is a tragic, tragic tape. i want to say having spent two years of my life in
iraq
, the journalists in
iraq
, some of the bravest folks i have met. this is a tragic, tragic video. however, from the perspective of the troops in hoiks flying around engaged by
rpgs
and we have had helicopters shot down in this part of
baghdad
, i can see where they were coming from. i think it's slanderous to say their
mission
to kill as many
iraqis
as possible. not at all. our
mission
is to engage targets terrorizing
baghdad
like we thought these people were.

>>lieutenant colonel schafer, you look at this and you ask yourself, what are the
rules of engagement
from our soldiers and how do you -- there's a reality in new
york
long ago where kids in the ghetto would take guns and point them at police, toy go guns.

>>i know.

>>how do you distinct between the camera tripod and the
rules of engagement
which i presume try to avoid this?

>>well and that's absolutely correct and, dylan, i'm glad you use that example. i was in exactly the situation to shot or not shot an 8-year-old in kabul in the first
mission
. the thing threw at the car turned out to be a cup. thank god. but it's shoot/don't shoot call every time you're out. there it's never easy. but this is tragic. now, let me be clear here. this, i believe, was a failure partially because of training and discipline. i mean, when you're using aviation as a
primary source
of delivery of weaponization of combat, of
fire power
, you've got to be very, very precise. this is what general mcchrystal is always talking about. we have to get it right if we're going to have the population on our side. i watched the video very closely, dylan. what's going to happen when the kids grow up now is what will be the memories of this ins zment we have got to be better than good. we have got to be great. i understand the context of both ends of this, there were a lot of
rpgs
coming out.

>>from your perspective, were the
rules of engagement
followed from what you see in this piece of videotape?

>>let me be clear. based don fact this is not confirmed video of the army, i don't know but based on what i've seen, no, they were not. first rule is to engage persons with hostile intent by minimum force necessary. minimum force is the key here. if you see eight armed men, the first thing to think as an intelligence officer, how can we take them and capture them? we don't want to kill people ash arbitraril arbitrarily. when you see the van to take away the wounded, do not target or strike anyone out of combat due to sickness or wounds. the wound part of that i find disturbing by the fact you have people down, clearly down. people on the way there. again, speaking at an intelligence officer, i want to capture people to recover them. if you're not doing that, you are not doing precise combat.

>>glen, put all of this together and it is everybody's worse nightmare. brought to reality and is a reality that does not get a lot of coverage we know in this country if any which is why
wikileaks
exists. if you look at what is coming, the awareness of this in the concrete is what occurs, how does the
american military
, how does the
american media
, how does the american -- how do you perceive this altering the conversation go ahead.

>>well, i think one of the things to emphasize is that
wikileaks
is heroic. this footage is seen all the time in the
muslim world
of what we are doing over there and the effect of the missions are but it's seen very rarely over here and sparks the kind of discussion we ought to be having about what our wars and invasions actually entail are doing. i think other important thing to note about it, this is far from uncommon. just today on the
front page
of "the new
york
times" the pentagon had to admit claims of made of a
special forcesmission
in
afghanistan
were completely
false
, killing five civil sans and claimed three were found
bound and gagged
but we ended up killing all five civilians. this happens constantly and learn about it when investigative reporters or sites expose it. what i think it unsds scores is we know to send soldiers into war, these things happen. that's the
fog of war
even well intentioned soldiers commit acts like this. the point is to think about why we continue to invade other countries knowing that the kinds of things we see on the video from r the kirnds of things we'll be going to the population. there it's immoral and counter productive as the gentleman just said. what do you think the people who see this video an the family members who are surviving are going to think about the
united states
for the next two or three decades.

>>at what point, brett, do you have to ask the question about the security
mission
and the desire for everybody in
america
to have security? and the mechanism, the reality of our military engagement in
iraq
and
afghanistan
? and whether, in fact -- at what point it is beneficial and what point it is detrimental? how do you answer that question?

>>that's a gigantic question. at the time the
mission
in the
iraq
, we were losing the
mission
that the point. and that's what ended up happening. the
mission
to protect the population. therefore, an operation like this went against the very
mission
we were -- there's probably more examples of
u.s. troops
in the
streets
to protect civilians and not engaging and we are taking casualties.

>>i have no doubt for that. i don't think anybody in the conversation i hope is seeking to indict either soldiers or military. i think it's understandable going to the old
suicide by cop
na narrative and you can see where it happens but the bigger question is, if we are trying to secure our nation and we are spending $12 billion a month on war in the
middle east
, and we're working our way towards $8 trillion and talking about 100,000 dead
iraqis
i can keep going. when does the question become, where does our security end and a war that appears to be off track begin?

>>well again, i mean, look. historians will judge the consequence of the
iraq
intervention. there's a chance now that we're going do leave something better behind in
iraq
but it's going to take about ten years to determine that. i don't know. all i know is we are in a situation at that point where
baghdad
is out of control. on the precipice of genocidal levels of silence and secure the population and give the
iraqis
a chance. you say, my gosh, everything is going --

>>to the point, unfortunately, there are more examples like this. this is -- i'm no one here seeking to indict specifically any of these soldiers at all. but i think it is critical to acknowledge in the
fog of war
, in the context of combat, that this is what is happening and at the very least, to glen's point, this is what is being seen by the families who would view
american soldiers
and american presence as infidels.

>>again --

>>true?

>>also critical to acknowledge we have at that time
u.s. soldiers
in the
streets
to protect iraqi civilians. that's -- i mean,
iraq
before the surge was just --

>>no one's contesting that yet.

>>we put
americans
in harm's way to stabilize that -- and give a city of 7 million people a chance. that's what was happening. an event like this goes against the entire
mission
. therefore, yeah. this is a terrible, tragic thing. i won't defend it. the context is critical here.

>>i appreciate that. glen, same to you, again. thank you for your reporting and context. anthony, same to you, appreciated. we'll continue our coverage of this developing story over the next few days and weeks. coming up here on "the